During World War II and Afterwards

World War II actually started on the first of
September 1939 when the German army attacked Poland. On August 23,
1939 the German-Soviet agreement stipulated that Lithuania would be
under the German jurisdiction, but that same year, in September 1939,
it was decided by Germany and the Soviet Union that Lithuania will
become a state under the Soviet jurisdiction. According to this
agreement on October 10, 1939 Vilna, including a 9000 square
kilometer area (about 20 miles by 20 miles) around the town was
returned (from Polish occupation) to Lithuania by the Soviet Union,
and Soviet troops were allowed to establish bases all over
Lithuania.

On June 15, 1940 Lithuania was forced a regime to
form that was friendly towards the Soviet Union. When the new
government was formed, headed by Justas Paleckis, the Red Army took
over Lithuania. As a result the President of Lithuania Smetona fled,
and the Lithuanian leaders were exiled to Siberia. The parties were
disbanded. The popular Seimas was elected, 99% of its members were
Communists. The Seimas unanimously decided that Lithuania would join
the Soviet Union.

Following new rules, the majority of the factories
and shops belonging to the Jews of Ponevezh were nationalized. Houses
occupying over 220 square meters (about 2400 square feet) , many of
them Jewish, were nationalized too. All the Zionist parties and youth
organizations were dismissed, and several of the activists were
detained. The "Komsomol" (The Communist Youth Organization) started
to mobilize youth into its lines.

Hebrew educational institutions were closed and
towards the 1940/1941 school year, the main language of instruction
at the former Hebrew Schools was Yiddish.

Instead of the three Kindergarten- "Tarbuth",
"Yavneh" and the Yiddish one - a united Yiddish Kindergarten was
established with 160 children and housed in two buildings. All the
Jewish elementary schools were united into two. The High Schools were
concentrated in the building of the "Yavneh" high school and about
600 pupils studied there in two shifts. The name of it was "The third
governmental gymnasium with instruction language Yiddish". The
"Peretz" library moved into a spacious flat on behalf of the
"Folkshilf" (Popular Help) and a reading room opened. The building of
the Yeshiva was taken over by the Russians and its students wandered
from place to place. Jewish Communists who emerged from underground
activities, were given important jobs in the civic sector.

The building of the former Hebrew High-School
without the Magen-David on the top of it

The supply of goods decreased and, as a result,
prices soared. The middle class, mostly Jewish, was hit hard, and the
standard of living dropped gradually.

At the beginning of June 1941 at least 27 Jews,
the owners of nationalized factories and shops and Zionist activists
were exiled deep into Russia. The others sat "on their suitcases" and
awaited their turn.

The German army entered Ponevezh on the of June
26, 1941, 5 days after the German invasion of the Soviet
Union.

Even before a single German soldier was seen in
town, the Lithuanian nationalist activists started to insult and
abuse Jews. Behind these activities there were several people from
the Lithuanian intelligence in town, like the principal of the
high-school, the deputy of the district prosecutor, the secretary of
the provincial court and others (their names are preserved in the
Archives of Yad-Vashem in Jerusalem). They organized the local
students who were subsequently involved in the majority of the
murders of Ponevezh Jews.

On the of July 4, 1941 a call to the local
Lithuanian population was published in the periodical "The Liberated
Ponevezh Citizen" stating: "help the German army to clean our forests
and groves of Jews, Bolsheviks and other strangers (foreigners),
including Lithuanian traitors as fast as possible. So your lives and
properties would be saved."

Rumors about a Lithuanian doctor being murdered by
Jews were circulated throughout the town. This signaled the beginning
of the pogroms that were to follow.

The Jews were now required to report daily at
various locations throughout the town from where they would be taken
for various work assignments in the immediate area. One group of
young and fit men were taken away and given "the job of digging peat
in the countryside." None of them ever returned.

Every day, local Lithuanian policemen would
arrange a "show". They would march groups of Jews through the streets
of the town, while continually beating them with whips and rifle
butts. Those whose strength eventually failed, had to be carried by
others who could still walk. These "performances" would be watched by
a large crowd of jeering spectators who would follow the procession
all over the town.

Many Jewish men of all stages of life were
arrested and brought to the local jail where they were cruelly
tortured. Every night they would be awoken and forced to crawl around
the yard outside on their elbows and knees in the gravel. All the
while, the guards would beat them using spiked whips and eventually
the wounded prisoners would be bundled on to waiting trucks which
took them to either the Kaiserling (Kaizerlingas) (2 km south-east
from Ponevezh) or Zalioji (13 km north-east from Ponevezh) forests
where they were be murdered by their captors.

At the beginning of July the Jews were ordered to
crowd together in a Ghetto that was established in Klaipeda,
Krekanava and Tulvicius streets. The deadline for the Jews to
relocate to the Ghetto was July 11 at six in the evening. The area
was fenced off with barbed wire and Lithuanians from the auxiliary
police were stationed as guards around the perimeter. It was
announced that those Lithuanians who had vacated their homes in the
streets set aside for the Ghetto, would receive the Jews' homes in
return. Avraham Riklis and Moshe Levit were selected as the leaders
of the Ghetto community. The Ghetto also served as a concentration
place for Jews who were transferred from Raguva, Ramygala, Krekenava
and other towns.

After the relocation of the Jews to the Ghetto was
completed, 70 dignitaries from the Jewish community were taken
hostage so as to ensure that no one would attempt to escape from the
Ghetto. Among those arrested were Dr. Golombvik, Dr. I.L. Bornshtein
and Dr. Chaim Ben Zion Eizenbud. They were thrown in jail and after a
short time transferred to military barracks in the Pajuoste forest.
They were subsequently murdered and buried on that spot.

Another version about the fate of Dr. Eizenbud is
that he was kept in jail and used as a doctor till the final
extermination of Ponevezh ' Jews.

The murder, abuse, humiliation and torture of the
Jews in the Ghetto continued unabated. Armed Lithuanians would burst
into houses, beat their Jewish occupants and take any household goods
they pleased. Lithuanian women who had previously worked in Jewish
homes would barge into houses in the Ghetto accompanied by armed
guards. They would point out their former Jewish employers and demand
money or valuables, which they knew were on the premises at that
time.

Terrible atrocities were inflicted on Jews by
Lithuanian guards at different workplaces. They broke arms of the
Jews with handles of the shovels, while the Jews were forced to
deepen a garbage pit. They pushed Jews into a boiling lime pit, they
forced Jews to carry barrels of fuel weighing 200 kg (440 lbs.) each,
and accompanied them with humiliating screaming and beatings. All
these tortured victims were consequently taken to Pajuoste and
murdered there.

At the beginning of August 1941 the Gestapo
officer who was in charge of the Ghetto offered the Jewish
representative to move to the empty military barracks near Pajuoste.
There, as he promised, would be less crowded and they would get land
for cultivation and so they could improve their food rations.

On the August 24, 1941 (first of Elul 5701) the
Germans and their Lithuanian accomplices began the final stage of the
annihilation of the Jewish community of Ponevezh. They were led from
the Ghetto to the execution site at Pajuoste in groups of 200. When
they reached the site they were ordered to take off their clothes and
to go down on the knees, whereupon the surrounding Lithuanian guards,
armed with machine guns and automatic rifles mowed them down with a
hail of bullets. As soon as they were shot another group would be
brought. Those who refused to go were dragged by the guards who beat
them senseless with their rifle butts.

Children were wrenched from their mothers and
thrown alive into the pits. The murderers would often amuse
themselves by throwing babies up into the air and shooting them
before they landed on the ground. As most of them were drunk, most of
their shots missed the targets and many babies were still alive when
they fell into the pits. The murderers lifted out those who had
survived by their hair and crush their heads with their
pistols.

The last group brought to the execution site were
the patients of the Jewish hospital together with all the medical
staff. The doctors and the nurses were still rearing their white
overalls when they arrived at the pits. Among them was the famous
surgeon Dr. T. Gutman. He encouraged all the team to accept their
fate with dignity and ensured them that their deaths would be avenged
by future generations. When his turn came, he took of his coat and
handed it over to one of the murderers saying: "you will find enough
money in this coat to last you for the rest of life. Aim your rifle
at my chest and make sure you don't miss." (The doctor was concerned
that he might be only wounded and then buried alive, so he paid off
his murderer to do a proper job!)

The massacre continued throughout the day and on
into the evening. By the next morning the pits were overflowing with
corpses. There were several pits of 100 meters (330 feet) long and 8
pits of 50 meters. The victims' clothes were piled up and the
murderers would rummage through the heaps choosing whatever items
they liked.

The filling of the graves was done by Soviet
prisoners of war. On one occasion they spotted a child who was still
alive in one of the pits. They pulled him out and tried to hide him
in the nearby bushes, but the Lithuanian guards spotted them and
those prisoners involved were given a severe beating. There were some
guards who suggested that the child might be allowed to escape but
the militia commander insisted that " the child cannot be allowed to
get away. Better to kill him and so ensure that there is no one left
to avenge the blood of the Jews". He then aimed his pistol at the
child and shot him through the head.

By the evening of August 26, 1941 (the third of
Elul 5701) the massacre was over and all the pits had been
covered.

In an official report of the German murder groups
the number of the murdered Jews in Ponevezh are given as
follows:

Even after Ponevezh and the surrounding towns'
Jews were murdered in August 1941, Jews still were working in the
town and at the airport nearby-till summer 1944. Those were Jews
brought from Vilna, Shavl, Riga and from Estonia. Among them were
Jews who were transferred from the Kovno Ghetto to Riga and Estonia
and also Jewish women from Hungary having passed through Auschwitz.
All these Jews were transferred to the Shavl Ghetto a short time
before its liquidation, and a part of them were transferred to the
concentration camps in Germany. Very few survived.

After the war, during the Soviet rule, a monument
on the mass graves was erected and on it a Magen-David was placed.
This was one of the unique monuments in Lithuania with this symbol on
it. The initiator of this monument was Shmuel Feifert from Trashkun.
During the war he served in the Lithuanian Division of the Red Army
and after returning to Lithuania he devoted himself to the
construction of this monument and to getting back Jewish children who
were hidden by Lithuanian families and handing them over to Jewish
families who were ready to accept them.

In 1948, while looking for a Jewish child in
Riteve (Rietavas), he was murdered by Lithuanians.

At the annual meetings of Ponevezh survivors at
the Monument on the mass graves at Pajuoste forest. There they would
say "Kadish" on the souls of their beloved people and on the pure
soul of Shmuel Feifert.

According to the book published in Vilnius "Mass
Murder in Lithuania 1941-1944" Volume 2, during the Soviet rule there
were mass graves found near Ponevezh at the following sites:

1.Kurganova (Pajuoste) forest- more
than 8,000 victims.

2.Kaizerling forest-103 victims, men, women and 48
Lithuanians, members of an underground.

3. Zalioji forest- about 4,500 victims, men, women
and children.

The Monument on the mass graves at Pajuoste
forest. The inscription in Yiddish and in Russian says: "The four
mass graves of the Ponevezh Jews who were murdered by the
German-Lithuanian Fascists in August 1941."

The Monument at the same site that was added
later with an inscription in Lithuanain: "At this place the
Hitlerists and their helpers in 1941 August killed about 8000 Jewish
children, women and men."

The Monument on the mass graves at Zalioji
forest. The inscription in Yiddish says: "Here, in this place the
Nazi murderers and their helpers in July-September 1941 remorselessly
murdered about 3500 Jews-children, women, men. Sacred is the remembrance of
these innocent victims."

The inscription in Lithuanian says: "In this
place Nazis and their local helpers in 1941 July-September
remorselessly murdered about 4500 people among them 3500 Jewish
children, women and men. Let their memories be sacred."

After the war some Jews returned to live in
Ponevezh, but during the following years most of them left the town;
a part immigrated to Israel and maybe to other countries as well. So
the numbers were decreasing. In 1959 there were 221 Jews in Ponevezh,
in 1989 only 66 were left among the population of about
41,000.

In 1971 Avraham Levit, a former Ponevezh Jew,
brought a small bag with soil from the mass graves to Yad-Vashem in
Jerusalem.

In November 1991 a monument was inaugurated at a
central square in Ponevezh at the site where the Jewish cemetery was
located. The cemetery was destroyed during the Nazi rule and the
destruction was accomplished during the Soviet rule. On the monument
an inscrption is carved: "At this site until 1972 was the old Jewish
cemetery. Let the remembrance of the dead be sacred".

At the end of September 1993, at the corner of
Krakenava and Klaipeda streets at a remarkable ceremony, a monument
made from granite (see the figure below) in the shape of a symbolic
gate of the Ghetto, was inaugurated. On the tables of the gate the
inscriptions in Lithuanian and Yiddish were carved - "Here was the
Jewish Ghetto from the seventh of July until the seventeenth of
August 1941. The sculptor of this monument was V.Zigas .